River Ahava
A place in the Bible
A river or canal of Babylon, where those returning to Jerusalem with Ezra gathered.
What happened here
- The fast: by the river Ahava, Ezra proclaimed a fast to ask God for a safe journey. He did not want to ask the king for soldiers, because he had said that the hand of God protects those who seek him.
- The departure: they set out from the river Ahava on the twelfth day of the first month, on the way to Jerusalem, and God protected them on the journey.
Today
No one knows where it was. It would have been in present-day Iraq.
Where it appears in the Bible
Ezra 8:15; Ezra 8:21-23; Ezra 8:31
What the Bible says
Ezra 8:15
And I gathered them together to the river, which runneth down to Ahava, and we stayed there three days: and I sought among the people and among the priests for the sons of Levi, and found none there.
Ezra 8:21-23
21And I proclaimed there a fast by the river Ahava, that we might afflict ourselves before the Lord our God, and might ask of him a right way for us and for our children, and for all our substance. 22For I was ashamed to ask the king for aid and for horsemen, to defend us from the enemy in the way: because we had said to the king: The hand of our God is upon all them that seek him in goodness: and his power and strength, and wrath upon all them that forsake him. 23And we fasted, and besought our God for this: and it fell out prosperously unto us.
Ezra 8:31
Then we set forward from the river Ahava on the twelfth day of the first month to go to Jerusalem: and the hand of our God was upon us, and delivered us from the hand of the enemy, and of such as lay in wait by the way.
Douay-Rheims Bible (Challoner revision), public domain.
Source: Ezra 8:15.21.31; Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897), “Ahava”